


Almost There

by mediozei



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Eventual Happy Ending, lil bits of klance, platonic shidge, profanity warning, some ocs later on, two years later after s01ep11
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-09 12:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7802110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediozei/pseuds/mediozei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I—I never signed up for any of this. I never expected that this is how it’s going to end up when I’m only trying to find Dad and Matt."</p><p>In which Pidge needs more affection and learns that everything isn't as bad as they seem to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two Years Later

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first voltron fanfic and im honestly still rough on composing stories ever since my last story update which was like a couple of years ago.  
> but anyway, i hope that ive reached your fanfic expectations ^^  
> enjoyy

“Hi, this is Pidge Gunderson, or Katie Holt whichever name you prefer to call me as, with log recording number sixty-two. It’s been two years since I last made an update and I apologize for that. But with everything that’s so fast forwardly occurring, none of us Paladins, The Princess nor Coran had any free time to ourselves.

“The castle is always buzzing with loud noises like Allura’s never ending commands, Keith and Lance’s shrieks and fights which is the cause of Shiro’s non-stop nagging, Coran’s babbling and Hunk’s worrying of whatever reason he has to worry about. I try to stay out of anyone’s mess to be honest, especially from Allura, and confide myself either in my room or Green’s hangar. However, it is only short lived since there will always be someone coming to break down the door every ten minutes to tell me about a machine that need fixing. I never bothered to, by the way, because it’s just Lance doing his usual thing.

“Moving on, after our last wormhole travel which was way back when that stupid witch of Zarkon’s wrecked our escape and sent us to different planets and galaxies, each of us had at least taken one heavy toll mentally or physically.

“Shiro was re-captured by one of the Galran ships in an enslaved planet which he and Keith had crash landed on, taking us about two to three weeks of finding Keith and taking back Shiro. Lance had been unconscious for days while floating alone with his lion in the atmosphere two galaxies away, while Hunk and I managed to locate Allura and Coran before our lions could lose connection with the castle. By the time we’ve reunited, half a year had already passed by and it was on Hunk’s birthday too. The poor guy cried all day and got a disgusting cake from Coran which we never ate.

“Anyway, another six months of blur went by when Keith suggested we strike Zarkon again. Surprisingly, Allura and Shiro had agreed to that idea and planned a way of striking down the ‘dark overlord’, as Lance had quoted. It was pretty reckless so to say, but I and Hunk never decided against it. Mainly because I still have yet to find where my family’s located at, or even a small clue that might lead me to them. But after a couple of attempts of infiltrating Zarkon’s information base from all his ships, I couldn’t find anything. Eventually, I stopped and quit. There’s just—there’s no point in trying anymore. The least I could do right now is to wait for an opportunity that might never come, some sort of friggin’ miracle, while I fight alongside my team.

“As for Keith’s idea, we attacked the Galra a couple of times. Sometimes it lasted a day or two where we destroy dozens ships to lessen their attacks, and on other days it lasts about a week. By the time we were close to attacking Zarkon’s ship next, a sudden wave of his troops re-appeared as if our damage meant nothing to him and obviously it was a war of declaration.

“Though before us Paladins could form Voltron to fight approaching enemies, Allura had opened a wormhole to get us out of there. I was actually thankful that she had done that since I began to get overwhelmed by Zarkon’s sheer amount of manpower. Luckily, no one was enraged of the Princess’ move. All of us were shocked too. How could that guy easily spawn an entire battalion in a day which took us weeks to take down? It’s just.. _terrifying_.

“So we decided to re-strategize our move and that means more planning, more training, and more noises, but to Allura’s eyes we were still slacking off. With a new training regime, she made us train to the point where Hunk had stopped eating on an hourly basis, and had Lance co-operate and understand better which we never though was possible. Although she seemed to have forgotten there was another girl within the castle.

“As far as I know about Altean biology, they have a stronger and sturdier body than humans due to their ability of shapeshifting. In comparison to a female Altean and a female human, their differences are so great that Allura could kill me with her bare hands even if I was a full grown woman. So, long story short I collapsed in the midst of sparring with a training robot due to fatigue while it continuously hit me with its full punches in the abdomen.

“I was unconscious for three days in the healing pod and confined for another week in my room to regain my strength. Allura had come for a visit one day and apologized far too many times, but to be honest I never was mad at her. She was just doing her job of keeping the Paladins in shape like the ones she knew of back in her home planet. If anyone was at fault, it was me in the end. What I’m about to say next will be very sexist of me, but what can a girl like me even do to have a worthy title of being a Paladin? I—I never signed up for any of this. I never expected that this is how it’s going to end up when I’m only trying to find Dad and Matt.

“And Mom, I never meant to leave you alone. But why did you—why did you have to go? I know that there’s a difference between the Earth and space’s time, but don’t you think it’s too soon? I just—I just want all four of us, Dad, Matt and you, to be together as a whole without any disruptions from the outside world. I want to feel the warmth of your embrace whenever you comfort me and I want to listen to your soothing voice whenever you hum a lullaby.

“I—I need you, Mom. I miss you. And I’m sorry. I almost, almost, had them. They were within my reach but I wasn’t able to—I couldn’t.. “It’s been two years and I’m already sixteen. Finding my dad and brother seems to be a lost cause, but I’ll never stop fighting with team Voltron and defeat the Galra Empire even if it’s solely for revenge.

“See you soon, Mom.”

-

Pidge let out a shuddering breath as she ended the log recording. A tinge of shiver went up her spine making her prop up her legs and hug herself for warmth. The temperature was set low inside the Green lion and Pidge wasn’t bothered to change it.

It’s currently a quarter past two in the morning, another one of those nights where Pidge loses track of time and casually ignore her sleeping schedule. But it doesn’t matter anyway. Seeing a sleep deprived Pidge wasn’t unusual in the castle at all and Hunk had gotten used to giving the Green Paladin endless cups of coffee. Shiro would seldom disapprove of her decisions, although he couldn’t complain for he has his sleepless nights as well.

Speaking of the Black Paladin, Shiro’s been roaming the castle grounds looking for Pidge’s whereabouts after finding her room was empty. It’s become a daily routine that he never noticed he’d do every night, and Pidge hasn’t complained about Shiro’s sudden company whenever he finds her.

Passing by countless of quiet corridors and meeting vacant rooms, he was about to retrace his steps back into the barracks when he heard a soft whine coming from one of the lions’ hangars. Knowing that Pidge was with Green, Shiro entered the lion’s hangar and straight into its opened mouth without hesitation and quickly searched for her.

The first thing he noticed about the interior of the lion was the frigid temperature that caused a rise of panic for Shiro. If Pidge had stayed in this state of a place for too long, she could have hypothermia. Another health problem that would only add to her series of physical pain she’d received a few days back.

Not having the ample time to change the temperature, Shiro looked for the girl who could be freezing to death right now. But the moment he did saw her broke his heart.

Pidge was crouched low on the metal floor, her shoulders both trembling because of the cold and her near hysterical crying. Tears poured profusely from her red, blotched eyes, holding so much anguish that no one could possibly describe. An agonizing sob would escape her blue-tainted lips from time to time, sometimes sounding strained as she tries to hold it back in fear of letting it out as a loud cry instead. A mutter of words could also be heard in the midst of her cries; either a string of apologies or names of her family.

It was not a pleasant sight to see, but Shiro felt helpless as he stood in front of Pidge with only a feeling of sympathy welling up inside him. However, he still approached her quietly and gingerly picked her up in his arms with ease.

“Shh, it’s okay, Pidge, it’s okay.” He cooed next to her ear, his arm slowly rubbing smooth circles behind her back while the other supported her weight, walking both of them out of the lion’s mouth.

Pidge had dug her face deep in the crook of Shiro’s neck, her tears now soaking the black material of his shirt. Her shaky arms coiled around his upper body, wanting to embrace the warmth that he radiates, and Shiro does the same in return.

“I-I’m sorry, Shiro,” he heard her whisper once she regained her normal breathing. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry of, Pidge. Just know that whatever you’re going through, I’ll always be here to support you, okay?”

He felt a small nod on his shoulder. Shiro smiled and moved his hand to pat her head in a comforting gesture.


	2. Of Wits and Strength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically a mission that's bound to happen, planned by Pidge, and a dash of Klance ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry for the delay (?) and my sucky summaries  
> but thank you so much for the kudos on the previous chapter like  
> oml i wasnt even expecting to have that much views  
> anyway, hope you enjoy!

“There is no way you’re stronger than me!” Lance exclaimed and pointed an accusing finger at Keith, who is not in the mood to play with Lance’s games.

“I’ve beaten you in both piloting a ship and close combat. What else could you possibly have that might overthrow me?” the Red Paladin sighed, his right eye twitching in annoyance for every second he’s close to him.

Lance looked aghast, sputtering out random words that don’t even form a proper sentence. “W—well! Why don’t we decide it over a round of arm wrestle?”

“And what will I get in return if I win?”

“I will a-admit,” Lance looked down for a moment, a blush creeping up his tanned cheeks. “That you’re way better and s-stronger than me.”

“That’s all?” Keith dragged out his words, clearly liking where their conversation was going.

“What do you mean that’s all?! Isn’t that enough?!”

“Alright, alright,” he laughed at Lance’s loose composure, but was also a tad bit surprised at the same time. To think that he, Lance, would set aside his boasting pride just over a simple game sounded absurd. “Let’s get this over and done with.”

Both men walked towards a tall rounded table, faced each other and propped up their elbows on the glossy surface. They took their hands and gave it a firm _squeeze_ , getting themselves comfortable before beginning the game.

Then Lance spoke out a countdown. “Three… Two… O—“

“Whoa, hold on!” came the hurried command of Shiro as he rushed in the lounging room. “What are you guys doing?”

“Uh,” Keith never would’ve thought he’d initialize a stupid idea by Lance one day, especially in front of his superior who seemed kind of disappointed at his current actions. Or so he thought. “Arm wrestling?”

“I don’t even want to know why but if you’re going to do this,” Shiro approached them and placed Lance and Keith’s spare hands beside one another’s elbows as a support. “You have to do it properly in order to have a fair play.”

“Oh,” Lance’s eyes suddenly lit up, like a kid that’s discovered something amazing. Keith seemed to be lost in them for a moment, captured by its sparkling orbs, before looking away.  “Thanks, Shiro!”

The Black Paladin smiled, then overlapped his calloused hand on top of his cadets’ _grasping_ hands. “I’m going to count you off. Ready?”

He received two firm nods.

“Okay. On the count of three. One,”

Keith and Lance narrowed their eyes, a thick _tension_ that began to from between them as they waited for the last number to roll off Shiro’s tongue.

“Two,”

The grips on their hands _tightened_ a quarter of an inch, the blood flow inside their veins slowing as it became restricted.

“Thr—“

“You do know that Lance uses that hand to jerk off his dong millions of times?” a familiar voice interrupted the game and Shiro’s last countdown. The three men inside the room froze at what had just been said, until Lance snapped out of his most embarrassing reverie and used the situation to his advantage and slammed Keith’s loose hand down on the table.

“I won!”

“That wasn’t a win, you shit!” Keith exploded, his arms waving high up above his head in a form of hysteria. Shiro, on the other hand, was silent, not daring to open his mouth and speak.

“Oh c’mon, just accept it unless you want to redo the match again?” Pidge fully entered the room with Hunk trailing behind her, who’s been holding back a huge burst of laughter with both hands covering his mouth.

Keith’s nose scrunched up at her proclamation. “No.”

“Okay, great.” She sat on one of the couches and placed her laptop on her lap, booting it open. “Besides, it’s not like any of you guys have never done it before.”

And cue in four faces of undeniable blushes.

“Huh, thought so.”

Thankfully to the four Paladins, excluding Pidge, Allura and Coran had made their appearance and were delightful to see the youngest among them to be finally out of her room after being confided for a week of recovery.

“Pidge! I’m glad you’re able to join us today.” The Princess smiled brightly, not seeming to notice the other Paladins’ deep red faces or their presence even. Coran did, however, but decided that it was just a _human thing._

“Thank you, Allura.” Pidge gave a weak smile back, wanting to show the other woman that she was alright. “Moreover, I’d like to show and the rest of the team something that I’ve discovered a couple of days ago during one of my data researches.”

This information piqued everyone’s interests and inched closer towards the Green Paladin’s personal space. As much as she did not mind the very close contact, she wished Coran would’ve at least cleansed his mouth, or whatever Alteans did to get rid of their morning breath stench.

Wrinkling her nose in slight disgust, she inched away from him and coughed. “So uh, before I could get started,” she eyed the Princess and asked her a question. “Do you know of how one, or Zarkon in particular, is able to obtain quintessence?”

“As far as my knowledge on quintessence goes, it is an element that each and every one of us has, and is also something that is not easily obtained. But for Zarkon’s case, I do not know.”

Pidge furrowed her eyebrows and glanced back at her laptop’s screen. “Well, related or not, I’ve located a planet quite far from here that’s been emitting large amounts of energy into the atmosphere. Since quintessence is some kind of life force, I thought that that is where Zarkon has been collecting the raw material.”

“Were you able to view who or what was in that planet?”

“The energy from the atmosphere prevented me to, shutting down any type of spying equipment that ventured too close. Navigating towards the planet with our ship and lions might be dangerous if attempted.”

“Does that mean we’re not investigating the creepy planet and stay here where it’s safe?” Hunk twiddled with his fingers, receiving multiple blank stares from his fellow team mates.

Pidge gave him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, Hunk, but no. This place could give us some definitive answers that we’ve been aching to know of. Besides, the planet’s not a heavily secluded place.”

She directed the cursor on the screen display and let everyone around her see a video clip of a celestial body that emits a fiery golden aura into the atmosphere. It wasn’t big in size, but definitely bigger than the Earth like the planet Neptune.

A Galra ship soon appeared that stopped at a certain amount of distance from the golden planet when a similar looking wormhole made an opening in the planet’s atmosphere. The ship entered without much disruption and the opening vanished in an instant.

“Pidge, for the love of space and all things tasty, please don’t say what I’m thinking of what you’re thinking of doing to get in that planet.” The Yellow Paladin whined, practically begged as he gave a puppy eye look at her, but alas, it was to no avail.

“Yup. We’re going to disguise ourselves as a Galra soldier to get past that energy consumptive barrier.” Pidge grinned. “Going back to the data I’ve collected of Galra’s ships schedule, there’s a close one nearby that’s bound to leave in a few hours straight to the planet. Furthermore, it has a couple of vacant spacecraft for us to use when we escape. Hacking the system would be fairly easy too so that none of the soldiers would suspect a group of Voltron members had infiltrated their base.”

“Wow,” Shiro sounded impressed. “You’ve really thought this through, kiddo.”

She gave a nervous laugh and rubbed the back of her neck which was sore from the nights she’d spent dedicating herself to research and other things that involved staring into the bright light of her laptop screen and hunching her back perpetually. “Y—yeah, well, I probably shouldn’t have since it’s possible that we’re not able to actually do this..”

“I disagree,” Allura spoke up, letting a hand rest on Pidge’s left shoulder and ease the tension she felt by rubbing a spot with her long fingers. “This is a great opportunity and a chance to move forward from where we are now. We’ve taken greater risks in our previous missions and battles between the Galra Empire. I’m sure that this operation is nothing but a mere task, although rules of being a proper Paladin still continue to subsist.

“Get yourselves ready and stationed in your lion. We’ll depart in half an hour.”

_Bonus:_

“Hey, Lance,” Keith called out to him after Pidge’s meeting of quintessence and planets, waiting for everyone to leave the room.

“Yeah, dude?” the tanned male glanced back at him from the entrance door.

“About the arm wrestling earlier, I’m going to ignore whatever Pidge had said and let you take the victory.” he paused before adding, “I don’t even want to know if you actually do it or not.”

“Uh, okay.” Lance awkwardly drawled out.

A few moments of silence passed by between them, and Lance was about to take his leave when Keith spoke again. “So?”

“So what?”

“I lost the game, meaning that I owe you something.”

“Oh,” Lance’s lips pursed into a straight line. “Can I just save it instead? I don’t really have anything in mind right now.”

Keith scoffed and turned away, heading to other exit of the lounge room. “Touché.”

“Wha—Hey! Come back here!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was totally not using the italics on purpose.. *winkwinkwink*


End file.
